Hillary Kim ’25 is an applied math major. Yet, art permeates her life at Swarthmore. After attending an arts-oriented high school in California, art became Kim’s norm, a grounding and standard part of both her experience and expression. “When I got here
“There is a lot of art in math and there is a lot of math in art,” said painter and dancer Emmie Wolf ’22 as we sat in her senior studio. The space was brimming with her paintings, and although they were
Note on the Title The second symbol in the title is an “epsilon.” It sounds Greek. It sounds geek! It’s both. I first encountered this symbol in a Paul Erdős biography, because he used to refer to children as “epsilons.” Cute. Epsilons
In my previous piece, I outlined this pervasive feeling of being <, this mix of imposter syndrome, stereotype threat, and my own insecurities blended together in a, to say mildly, unappetizing concoction. Since then, I’ve spent the past month interviewing four mathematics
When I was young, probably 4th grade or so, my mother told me I wasn’t a “S.T.E.M. person.” My mother is a person who believes in excellence; she believes there is little point to working in a field in which you will
Beginning in Fall 2019, the Department of Mathematics and Statistics stopped offering Math 26 which covered advanced topics in single-variable calculus.The department began offering the course, designed by Professor Thomas Hunter, in 2004. Math 26, which bridged the gap between Math 25
Editor’s note: This article was initially published in The Daily Gazette, Swarthmore’s online, daily newspaper founded in Fall 1996. As of Fall 2018, the DG has merged with The Phoenix. See the about page to read more about the DG. This is
Why does my math class have so few girls? Why did the engineering department here have only one female professor last year? These are the types of questions many girls in S.T.E.M. at Swat tend to ask ourselves. Issues of underrepresentation of
In a recent piece for the Phoenix, “Why Mathematical Reasoning Should Be a Part of Civic Education,” Zhicheng Fan advocates expanded mathematical education as an antidote to the post-factual political climate into which the U.S. has unfortunately ventured. The argument, in essence,
We now live in a world where reason and truth are under siege on a daily basis. The Economist declares that we have entered an era of “post-truth politics.” Falsehoods are called “alternative facts.” Science is subject to ideological manipulation. On both
